Thursday, 29 January 2015

Strava - new world for marketing?

A few days ago I saw something interesting on biggest Swedish MTB forum. People put Strava bar in their signature. Shows how many trails you rode, how many KOMs bladi bla. That act of self elevation already hit me hard, but after quick browsing I saw that one person goes one step further... He has put a logo and link to the website of his sponsor under the bar. It made me wonder... Many people are into Enduro Racing by logging into Strava via Facebook. What if you have a sponsor, and when you KOM, you could add his logo and tag to it, so that all of your friends can easily see what theoretically made you so fast? Sure you can already specify what you ride, but I think logos would make it more visible. Then Strava could gather that information from all profiles and you could ask it to show all trails in your area or in the whole world where people KOMed, for instance, on a Cannondale or on ENVE wheels. You could have a ranking which bike or suspension maker is the most successful. That would transform the world a bit I think, it would add another dimension to the game of "which stuff should I buy", ruled by tests, reviews and most importantly results of top athletes, isn't it?

On the side note I can share some gem-threads you can find on that forum:

You are a genius. An evil genius. The bike companies need to get with strava and do this now. Strava could get paid ad money. Jeeze they should do this, but at the same time the mercantilism makes me feel a little ill. I want it to be clean and clear of ads, but at the same time you could see it as a huge boost for sponsored riders.